Leviathan
by John Chao
Summary: The coming of the prodigal Cerebrate
1. The Hydralisks

Aliens

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            There is a distinct difference between fighting fellow Terrans and fighting aliens.  Max knew that now.  At first, he thought that all war was the same hell he'd known against the Dominion, but… then he found zerg.  Then Protoss.  Then enlightenment.

            He stood nervously outside the bunker, the heavy flame cannons on either arm slowly fatiguing him.  He scanned the far distance nervously, hoping not to see the zerglings swarming the horizon.  Civilians laughed at the zerglings, the so-called "small dogs" of the zerg.  Obviously, they never fought zerglings.  Something in the gleam of their eyes, they way they scream like a tortured soul, the way they turn and look at you with teeth dripping with the gore of your comrades…  Even the fires, the great conflagration that he could conjure, did not stop them.  Nothing did, when they came in numbers.

            Far above, he saw the sun blotted out, presumably by the command ship _Huntsman_.  But something was wrong.  There was no tell-tale thrum as the ship's antigrav struts struggled mightily to keep it in the air.  In fact, all he heard was a rising whistle, a scream of hellish delight.

            He turned around just as demons fell from the sky.  The first one tore into Jackson's armor, tearing it open with a single slash.  Jackson screamed, the noise turning into a low gurgle as the scythe-blades of the zergling's arms ripped him open.  He fell to the ground, and the zergling spun around, looking for another target…

            And Max squeezed the triggers on both arms, watching as the fires washed over the creature, biting his lip as he heard his still-living friend's tortured screams.  How many people had he killed to keep himself away from the zerg?  He didn't really want to know.

            Another zergling landed directly on the bunker surface, where it was safe from the fire of the marines within.  It immediately ripped a hole into the material- material that was said to need a small atomic explosion to tear- and leaped in, even while bullets tore bloody chunks out of its flesh.  There was a wet _crunch_ from inside the bunker, followed by a sound like a giant tearing a great sheet of canvas, then a screeching hiss.  Max smiled.  The thing was dead. 

            "Forrrrrrhisssslove…" came a low voice from above, and a humanoid form dropped in front of the bunker.  Gauss rifle fire blew bloody holes in the thing, but it took a spiked fist and punched the marine closest to it.  Its hand went clear through the helmet, then it jumped in the bunker.

             The explosion killed everyone in the bunker instantly and rained shrapnel out in all directions, hurling Max far, far away.

            Max scrambled to his feet, feeling chunks in his Firebat combat suit- that giant, armored thing that carried his flamethrowers and kept his soft, precious body out of harm's way.  He started to run in front of the bunkers, and motioned for the other Firebats to come along.  He knew to stay within range of the big gauss rifles holed up in the bunkers, and he also knew that things would come out of the ground.  The zerg never attacked foolishly- he may wish they did, over and over, but he knew the truth.  He could, just out of the corner of his eye, see the overlords bearing more zerg ground forces.  It almost looked like he was running towards the zerg undoubtedly burrowed in front so he could engage their hydralisks, their support warriors, in close combat, but that wasn't quite it.  He was running from the overlords, running from the death he could see towards what looked to him like open ground, though he knew it had just as much death there as anywhere else.

            The earth seemed to ripple upwards as he finally ran into range of the terrible hydralisks.  Their chest carapace opened up, filling the air with needle spines.  To his right and to his left, he heard the screams of his fellow firebats dying as the spines tore through their armor and into their fuel tanks.  The eyes of the hydralisks seemed to glow a dull red, and one turned to him just as he closed in.

            The spines crackled in the air as Max threw himself at the ground, arms burning.  The fires touched the hydralisk at its base, right where the upright third of its body, with the chest and the arms, met the lower two thirds, which were responsible for locomotion.  The hydralisk screamed, then turned its head to Max.

            Max knew better than to stay in one place.  Almost faster than he could see, the hydralisk lunged forward, tearing a hole in his combat suit so close to disemboweling him that he could feel the blood running down the wall of his stomach.  The fires kept going, and covered the hydralisk's head in the brilliant white-and-blue flames.  The hydralisk paused for just a moment, and Max used the opportunity to pour in more fire.  He could tell the hydralisk was slowing down, but this much flame was more than enough to melt  NeoSteel, and kill a hundred people.  The entire hydralisk was bathed in flame now, and then it vanished.  Max knew what happened, and turned to another hydralisk.  How zerg managed to put themselves so far underground, instantly, without any trace of their presence, was beyond him.  He just knew that he wanted to be far away when the thing came back up again, hungry for blood.

            Then he saw something that made him want to sing.  Dropships!  The UED was finally evacuating this base!  He saw the SCVs load raw vespene gas and minerals into the dropships in sturdy metal crates, and he smiled to himself.  He might be able to escape soon. The key personnel would be evacuated first, of course- the commanders and the two or three Ghosts.  Then it would be the tanks, the armored vehicles, and then the infantry.

            The ground kicked open, sending him hurtling upwards.  In the air, he felt perhaps a hundred needle spines tear into his abdomen.  He would die if he did not get medical attention, but the Firebat suit already was cauterizing the wound so that he could fight a little bit longer, possibly even to a combat medic or a real surgeon.  As he came down, he saw the hydralisk waiting for him, arm blades at the ready to tear him in half, and he realized there was nothing he could do.  He shut his eyes, and prepared for the brief pain, followed by the numbness.

            He felt himself collide with the ground, and the impact knocked several teeth loose.  He looked up, and saw the hydralisk shaking as bullets riddled its face and head.  The gauss fire would kill the hydralisk, if sustained for a long period of time, but not long enough to keep the hydralisk from killing him first.  He saw the hydralisk's tail slap into the ground, stabilizing it for a withering barrage of needle spines that would cut him down.

            He stimmed and ran, getting maybe four feet before the spines hit.


	2. Life, again

            Kerrigan floated in the gentle fluid of the overlord's ventral sacs.  Her eyes were closed, and she felt the presence of every Cerebrate in the Swarm.  Each was busy in maintaining its own Brood, and every now and again one found time to speak with her.  It was pleasant to be able to speak with those her predecessor, the fallen Overmind, had created.  The Cerebrate that had been created to watch her, to guide over her, Sehr'tal, was the one who she "saw" most often, and she was grateful to him for protecting her during her incubation.  He still remained among the most adept of the Cerebrates, and his Ashur brood was one of the most terrifying war machines that she could remember, or she could dredge up from the minds of the older Cerebrates.

            No Cerebrate could match the Overmind in wisdom, and not an hour passed when she did not think of Him.  Sometimes, she could feel Him stirring inside her, slowly awakening, and she embraced Him with open arms.  The process, however, was slow- He had been shattered by the Protoss in His quest for transcendence, and though He would be remade in her mind and her body, it was still a difficult undertaking.  She prayed in His memory that the Swarm could someday be made whole once more, with its embodiment taking His rightful place as its collective consciousness.

            The overlord saw Protoss Scout-class fighters streaking in the endless void, and relayed the sight to Kerrigan.  Kerrigan allowed a command to issue from her mind to the overlords, and she changed the course of the entire Brood to deal with the threat.  Best not to split the strength of her precious, only Brood while it was still in transit, lest the way be open to her enemies to wipe out detachments of it.  

As she watched, the Scouts began to engage her forces.  Perhaps six hundred of her mutalisks, aerial beauties with glittering wings and gaping maws without mouths, fired upon the Protoss craft at once.

A mutalisk is a helpless creature without its symbiotes.  That, Kerrigan reflected, was true of the entire Swarm.  No one creature could last on its own, but together, they formed something glorious.  The symbiotes of the mutalisk in particular, however, performed a dramatic role.  The vicious, ever-hungering glaive wurms launched themselves out of the "throat" of the mutalisk flyer, tearing into the foes of the Swarm and often returning back to the mutalisk to leap out once more.

Satisfied with the destruction of the Scouts, Kerrigan moved her forces back to the original course.

The Karriat system awaited her.

Max woke up to a searing white light in his eyes.  The first time this had happened, he had thought he had gone to heaven.  Now, he realized immediately what had happened.  He had been recovered, miraculously.  In the past, he had only fallen to fellow Terran soldiers, and they took care of the wounded, if they could.  He knew for a fact that the Zerg had not picked him up, because he was completely able to hate the Zerg and love himself over all other things.  But nobody was ever rescued from the Zerg.  Simply put, nobody had the balls to pick up one of their wounded after they see their best friend being reduced to a cloud of red by needle spines.

He looked up at the ceiling, and stood up from the metal cot.  He had not seen a real surgeon, and the problems he currently had would most likely recur, severely, in several years.  That didn't worry him- everybody knew he would never live that long.


End file.
